How To Design a Business Card From Home

So you want to design your business card at home? It is actually very easy and simple if you know a few simple tricks. We'll teach you our simple process of business card printing at home. You just need your computer, Adobe Photoshop, the Internet and a printer. No extra professional fees involved in this process, all you need is your imagination and a little passion for your custom business card printing. So fire up your computer and open Adobe Photoshop.

Things You Will Need

Adobe Photoshop is the software to be used in this article so make sure you're using the same program.
Step 1 Setting the dimensions of the canvas
Once you have Photoshop open, we need to create our canvass with a set dimension. So first create a new image file. In the file details dialog box you should see field referring to the image's dimensions. Now, the standard size for business cards in the United States is 3.5 x 2 inches. Internationally most people use 3.370 - 2.125 in. If you're a metric kind of person that is 89 - 51 mm for the US and 85.60 - 53.98 mm internationally.
Step 2 Adding some bleed space
Now, you know the dimension that you need to use. However, you need to know that a good practice in printing is to have some extra space set in the dimensions. This is called the bleed. A good bleed space would be an extra 0.125 inches of the length and width of the dimensions on all sides. That means, you add 0.25 or 1/4 inches to your length and width. For the United states that means you need to set your dimensions to 3.75 x 2.25 inches and internationally that is 3.62 x 2.375 inches. Once you set those dimensions to the new image file dialog window, press OK.
Step 3 Placing guide lines
With the dimensions set, it would be nice to know where the bleeds are in the canvas. Show the ruler by enabling it in the view menu. Use the ruler to setup a few guidelines on the top, bottom, left and right sides of the canvass. Just measure the guides to be 0.125 inches away from the edge of the canvass. These guidelines should let you know if a vital part of your design might be cut. If this happens you should see it early on and correct it. Save your file once you are finished.
Step 4 Setting up a source bin for images
Good! Now we have a canvass. Now for some material for our business card, let's setup a bin for images that we will be copying over from the Internet. Just create a new file image again. For this bin we are making a good dimension would be a standard 640x480 setting. Save this file and mark it as bin.
Step 5 Copying images
Now, its time to get some inspiration. Browse the Internet and look for images and business card templates that you like. If you see a picture that you want to use (hopefully its a public domain image or a creative commons one and not copyrighted), simple right click on it and select copy or copy image from the context menu. This should copy your image over to the clipboard. Go back to photoshop and place it on the image window for the image file bin that we setup earlier. You should see the image copied their in its own layer. Just repeat this process for images and templates that you see. It is better to use larger images so that they won't have pixels when you print them. From then on you can cut and edit those images and place them to your actual business card canvass. You can now design away.
Step 6 Copying colors
Once you have your collection of material from the bin folder, you can also get some colors from those images if you fancy some of their shades. Simply use the eye drop tool and click on the color you want to get. Afterwards go to the swatches area of your tool bars and click on a blank swatch area. This should place that particular color on your swatch or palette. Once you place that there, you can readily access it like any other color using the swatch area.
Step 7 Searching for fonts
Now to get some new and interesting fonts, it is easy to download free fonts over the Internet. Simply search for free fonts using a search engine and visit the sites that offer them for download. Usually font file types are saved in the ttf format. Just download them to your computer.
Step 8 Adding fonts for use in Adobe Photoshop
To add your newly downloaded free fonts for use in Adobe Photoshop, you have to copy the files over to Adobe's common files section. To do this, first select the font files that you want and press ctrl+c to copy them. Then using windows explorer, go to the folder c:program filescommon files AdobeFonts. Paste your font files there by pressing ctrl+v. Once you fire up your Photoshop, those fonts should be available for you to use.
Step 9 Color modes
Now you should have plenty of material for you to work with in your design. As a default, your image file should probably be in the RGB color mode. This is usually good for web graphics, but not the best for printing. Once you complete your design, change the color mode from RGB (red green blue) to CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow Black). You can access this through the Image menu, under the color sub menu. Your colors might change at this point. Adjust them if it is needed again.
Step 10 Resolution
Finally once all is done, you might need to adjust your resolution so that when the business card is printed, pixels will not appear. The best resolution for printing is 300dpi (dots per inch). So set your image resolution at that level. You can access the resolution settings under the Image->Image Size option in the menu bar.

Once you have setup all that you should be ready for printing. You can print those in your own printer using standard business card paper, or you can even opt for photo paper for that glossy finish. Of course with an image file in your hands, you can send that up to an online business card printing company so that you can print many copies. It is your choice.

The good thing is, you designed your own business card at home, and you had the full creative process under your control. There is nothing like a custom business card that you made on your own.